Шекспир. Сонет 17. Стихи и ребенок

Кто в будущем стихам моим поверит,
когда б они полны были тобой,
Лишь гроб они, и это знает Небо,
Ни жизни в них, ни сладости живой.
Когда б я вывел всю красу очей
и лучшее в тебе смог перечислить -
"Поэт солгал" - ответит старость: "Нет!
В чертах земных не ищут Неба смыслы".
Так с возрастом мой пожелтеет лист,
и, как старик-болтун, он, презираем,
права на жизнь собою подменив,
протянет песню, как античный ритм:
О если б твой ребенок родился,
ты б дважды жил - в нём и в моих стихах.


SONNET 17
Who will believe my verse in time to come,
 If it were fill'd with your most high deserts?
 Though yet Heaven knows it is but as a tomb
 Which hides your life and shows not half your parts.
 If I could write the beauty of your eyes,
 And in fresh numbers number all your graces,
 The age to come would say, 'This poet lies,
 Such heavenly touches ne'er touch'd earthly faces.'
 So should my papers yellow'd with their age,
 Be scorn'd like old men of less truth than tongue,
 And your true rights be term'd a poet's rage
 And stretched metre of an antique song:
    But were some child of yours alive that time,
    You should live twice,-- in it and in my rhyme.

NOTES

 XVII. The poet's record is, moreover, open to two objections; it is very imperfect, and, besides, posterity would not believe a full and accurate description of Mr. W. H.'s beauty, even if such a description were made. But the living record is open to no such objections; and, besides, it would confer an immortality additional to that given by the poet's verses.

 2. Fill'd.-Q. has "fild."

 6. In fresh numbers. Meaning probably "in successive new poems," rather than "in new metres."

 11. A poet's rage. The product of poetical enthusiasm.

 12. Stretched metre. Mere inflated words. Q. has the spelling "miter."